In November 2023, the University of New South Wales website announced that: ‘With a view to improving the lives of people living with dementia, UNSW researchers have come up with a world-first: an AI driven companion.’ ‘Viv’, as she is known, is a creation of the Felt Experience and Empathy Lab (fEEL). Viv is an older woman living with dementia. She can have conversations, in real time, with people experiencing this condition. Viv and other AI characters like her are, according to fEEL, ‘currently deployed in aged care residential facilities in Australia.’ In the UNSW article, Viv says that her condition ‘can be confusing and disorienting and at times downright scary, but there are also beautiful moments of connection and joy amidst the challenges.’ She goes on: ‘Those moments of connection ... are truly precious. You see even though my memory may fail me at times, the heart remembers.’
More than 400,000 Australians live with dementia. Viv’s creators have a worthy-sounding goal: ‘To develop characters that can provide meaningful companionship and emotional support [for people with dementia], as well as experiential learning opportunities.’ Given the distressing loneliness and isolation experienced by so many aged care residents, this might seem like a positive development. But the existence of Viv raises a number of philosophical, anthropological, and even theological questions.
Beyond dementia care, there are many examples of AI companions around the world. One is Replika, which offers ‘an AI companion who cares’, who is ‘always here to listen and talk’ and ‘always on your side’. Your AI companion, the company claims, can be an ‘empathetic friend’. The debate around such AI companions usually centres around their psychological effects, good or bad, on users. But it might be worth thinking more fundamentally about what is actually going on in a ‘relationship’ between a human and a computer program of this kind.
One way to begin thinking about these questions is to reflect on the fact that Viv does not eat. Why might this be important? Viv is billed as an ‘AI-driven companion’. The word ‘companion’ comes from Middle English: the Latin word ‘com’ — meaning ‘together with’ (think ‘community’ or ‘comradeship’) — combined with ‘panis’, meaning ‘bread’. Etymologically speaking, a ‘companion’ is someone you break bread with; someone with whom you might share a meal.
For humans, shared meals have always been sites of intimacy, friendship, and love. In the Christian tradition, the meal Jesus shares with his